Originally Posted by abm1213
This is a great thread. How would you alter your advice for folks who want to concentrate on shorter track disciplines? By shorter I mean 200m and kilo with some mass starts for thrills. How much should (what is a good goal) I be pushing when I do single leg presses?
Also, what strength is needed to create the power needed to reach certain speeds on the bike? I just want to know if there is some standard criterion measurement that can be specified as a goal as opposed to proprioceptive effort indices or gym stats.
If your answer includes power measurement on the bike, is there somewhere that an effort has been made to look at distributions of these measurements across different cyclists. Is there a website that has power profiles, for example, of racers who contribute to the forum? I'm just trying to find out what is out there. Thanks.
You're doing both 200m
and kilo? I'm not sure if there's a way to optimize weight-training for both. I kinda got stuck in between myself during the 8-years I did track before they closed down Dominguez Hills. The two guys I hung with that did kilo were Marc and Joe ; two riders who couldn't have been built any more differently. Marc looked like a football linebacker and Joe was a 130lb climbing twig. Yet, both their kilo times were within a second or two of each other.
Marc definitely had the power and his first lap was about 3s faster while Joe made it up on the last lap. Marc tended to focus more on aerobic training and only did weights in the winter. Joe did weight-training year-round. Rory helped us all out a lot with training and his programme wasn't that different than most road-racers. He did have an extra 2-3 weeks in the gym near the end to develop strength and power a bit. This last phase has more heavy-duty lifting with a day in the 2-3rep range. Otherwise, the beginning was the same.
Originally Posted by jazzy_cyclist
Danno -- so how do you do weights without bulking up? I've been going to the gym a few weeks now since we are only getting many less "rideable" days here in New England.
I've been doing mostly core-related things like back extensions, ab machines, leg curls, leg presses, squats, etc. I was happy with having lost weight during the season, but I am seem to be gaining some of it back! Should I be aiming for heavy weights w/ few reps or light weights/max reps?
Bulking up takes time and in the beginning, you build strength faster than bulk. This is done through recruiting dormant fibres in the muscles (building nerve-connections to them). The existing fibres also increase in size, so it's about 50/50. However, in order to build bulk, you have to do max-lift workouts with 5-8 reps for a long time, months and years at a time. Max weight-gain from lean muscle-mass is about 1-3 lbs/month if you're a heavy-duty competition body-builder. With just 8-12 weeks of cycling-specific training in the gym, you'd be lucky to gain 2-lbs of muscle, yet you can easily double or even triple your strength if you're a new rider. Be careful with the diet though, because it's easy to eat an extra 500 calories a day when you're not riding much. This adds about 1-lb/week of blubber resulting in a 12-15lb gain over the winter in fat that you have to work off in the spring.
As to the actual workouts themselves, I would suggest reading the above links and devising your own programme based upon your personal knowledge of which muscles tend to get overworked and sore on your rides. The sequence I like to use is to start with low-weights/high-reps and gradually build to high-weight/low-reps, then speedwork:
Week 1-3: low/medium weights, 12-15 reps, 3-days a week max with recovery day in between
Week 4-5: medium weights, day1: 7-12 reps, day2: 10-13 reps, day3: 12-15 reps
Week 7-9: medium/high weights, day1: 5-7 reps, day2: 8-10 reps, day3: 10-12 reps
Week 10-11: high weights, day1: 1-4 reps, day2: 5-7 reps, day3: 7-15 reps
Week 11-12: speedwork w/high weights, day1: 3-5 reps, day2: 5-7 reps, day3: 7-10 reps
This last stage is a very cycling-specific workout where you stop building strength and develop power. The weights aren't increased as you get stronger, rather you push them faster. Machines are preferred for safety. You want to overlap the last two weeks with the beginning of your base-miles/endurance rides in the spring if the snow has thawed sufficiently.
